One of EA’s major Wii U launch titles is a port of BioWare’s controversial sci-fi epic, but does it hold up technically and in terms of value for money?

Mass Effect 3: Special Edition (Wii U) – a little bit special

When it comes to the number and variety of games that are available the Wii U launch line-up has done pretty well for itself. It would’ve been nice to have had a more experimental Nintendo title instead of New Super Mario Bros. U, but since both it and Ubisoft’s ZombiU are actually pretty good that’s the most important thing on the first day.

Judging the qualities of the three most important launch games is relatively easy though. Trying to offer up some sort of definitive statement on the other games – the majority of which are ports of existing Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 titles – is much more difficult. From a technical perspective Mass Effect 3 is a pretty good port, but its price and a number of other contributing factors still make it a hard game to recommend.

You can find our original review of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Mass Effect 3 here , but we’ll offer up a quick overview before we get into the Wii U specific issues.

Mass Effect is the story of Commander Shepard (who can be either male or female – thanks to the superior voice acting ours is the latter). But despite her long and complex history the essence of the plot is extremely simple: giant sentient machines want to wipe out all organic life in the galaxy.

There is more to Mass Effect 3 than that of course, with Earth invaded during the opening minutes and much of the rest of the game spent trying to shore up allies – and working out what human supremacists Cerberus are up to. But the basics are very easy to get up to speed with and in that sense it doesn’t really matter that this is the third part in a trilogy.

In action the game is a highly competent third person shooter, similar to Gears Of War except with some simple squad-based commands and a range of ‘biotic’ magic powers. There are also some light role-playing elements (less than the first game but more than in the second) involving unlocking new skills for each of your crew and modifying your weapons with new attachments.

What really makes the game more than a shooter though is its dialogue system. The script isn’t what you’d call naturalistic but the characters you meet, including the antagonists, all have distinct personalities and viewpoints. Your Shepard can be a goody two-shoes if you want them to be, but nobody else is and the game is filled with ambiguous moral decisions that range from helping someone get a refund at a shop to potential genocide.

Famously the game also allows you to enter a romantic relationship with many of your crew, in what is an unusually open approach to sexuality for a video game. Wander down to the shuttle bay in the opening hours and you’ll find your pilot sobbing over the last transmission from his husband, in what is an impressively touching scene. The bi-curious comments of your secretary are less subtle, but at least BioWare are trying to be grown-up about such things.

One of Mass Effect 3’s most controversial new features is an optional multiplayer mode, but it actually works extremely well and offers some extremely enjoyable bite-sized co-op action. Your success can feed back into the main game, via a Risk style resource screen, but you can still comfortably win the game without ever touching it.

After its original release in March Mass Effect 3 became one our favourite big budget games of the year. Its graphics were never a major part of its appeal though – despite some attractive backdrops – with the facial animation in particular often seeming well short of state-of-the-art.

When it comes to image quality the Wii U version is, to the untrained eye, identical to the Xbox 360 version – although predictably not as good as the PC. In terms of frame rate the Wii U also does very well, far better than some scare stories about the console’s ports might suggest. The original two console versions of Mass Effect 3 both had the odd moment of trouble with slowdown but the Wii U version is notably better than the PlayStation 3 – if not quite as consistent as the Xbox 360.

You could rightly argue that as a new console the game should look noticeably better than its previous gen rivals, but we don’t think anyone sensible (and that clearly doesn’t include Reggie ) was really expecting that from a quick launch window port. Considering the minimal amount of time and money given to ports it’s actually quite impressive that Aussie developer Straight Right has managed to get the game working so well on a platform it was never designed for.

They’ve even added in a few extra features, with the GamePad touchscreen used to display a map on which you can order about your squad-mates. It also allows you to select biotics and weapons, although doing so doesn’t pause the action – which adds to the immersion but can leave you vulnerable. It’s a minor feature but it’s been implemented with some care and even starts to fritz out with static whenever Reapers are around, which is a nice, subtle touch.

Alternatively you can play the game on the Pro Controller (essentially a clone of the Xbox 360 joypad) if you prefer, which makes a lone new weapon the only real new content.

The qualifications about the Wii U version are not technical but practical. This is the final part of a trilogy and so one of the central appeals of the series – that all the decisions you took in the first two games are reflected in the third – is completely missing. There’s an interactive comic that tries to get you up to speed with the plot, and make some of the bigger decisions, but as you can imagine it’s not the same.

The other serious problem is that EA are charging full price for the game. Not only are the original versions very easy to pick up cheap but the Mass Effect Trilogy edition, featuring all three games, is already out on Xbox 360 and PC (and PlayStation 3 on December 7) for the same price.

On top of this the Wii U version will not feature any downloadable content bar what is included on the disc, namely the From Ashes mission, the controversial Extended Cut ending, and three multiplayer expansions. Not that any of the other downloads are very good, but that’s not really the point: especially when BioWare seem to be rubbing Wii U owner’s noses in it by releasing new download Omega the exact same week that the Wii U is released in Europe.

Mass Effect 3 is a great game, and the Wii U version is a solid port. But compared to the other versions it is extremely poor value for money. We can understand EA not wanting to cheapen the brand by releasing this at a budget price, but the obvious conclusion is that Mass Effect 3 just wasn’t a very sensible game to release as a launch game in the first place.

In Short:Not the best version of Mass Effect 3, but also not the worst – indeed it’s only the lack of the other games and their DLC that makes this difficult to recommend.

Pros:Highly competent third person action, bolstered by a huge cast of genuinely interesting characters and situations. A surprising decent port for the Wii U.Cons:No extra downloadable content and no access to the previous games. Poor value for money compared to other versions. Mediocre facial animation.